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Recently, researchers from Okayama University, Japan, investigated how pheromones, important chemical signals that affect foraging and reproduction, might influence death-feigning behavior in the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum.

The researchers looked at the red flour beetle to get the effects of simulated heatwaves on male reproduction.

The red flour beetle used in the experiments is a tropical species that thrives at 35C.

DNA sequencing of the ladybird's protein-coding genes revealed roughly 50 that help manufacture antimicrobial peptides, compared with 16 such genes identified in the red flour beetle, which the researchers examined for comparison.

He and his colleagues tested this idea in the red flour beetle, a 3-millimeter-long insect pest found in flour and grains and sometimes used in laboratory studies.